For tax purposes, it's better to get murdered by a terrorist than a street thug

[MaggieL]

Originally posted by ladysycamore

Interesting that one particular culture that own guns are just expressing their Second Amendment rights, but other cultures that own guns are considered criminal, deviant and God knows what else if THEY are armed.

Actually, armed cultures don't worry me much. Cultures don't shoot, people do.

The people that get all cranked up about "armed cultures" are the ones that are keen to disarm other people, having already been disarmed themsleves. People who think only cops should have guns, and then are outraged when some cops abuse their power.

People of good will who *are* armed tend not to worry about it as much. Even the "stupid white guy" contingent of the right-to-keep-and bear-arms crowd gives me less grief about being queer than the queer folk give me about being an armed citizen.

And then there's the Libertarians, who are very well-represented in RKBA circles.

Ferinstance:
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How Much Do You Want To Keep Your Guns? by L. Neil Smith

Would you agree to permit adults to buy, sell, read, write, make, listen to, or watch whatever books, magazines, records, tapes, or movies they want, no matter how pornographic -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?
Would you agree to tolerate Buddhists, Moslems, Taoists, Scientologists, Satanists, atheists -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?
Would you agree to let women control their own reproductive process, have abortions (at their own expense) -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?
Would you agree to allow people their own sexual preference, homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?
Would you agree to halt the "War on Drugs", to leave others alone, even to ruin their lives with alcohol, nicotine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, or any other substance -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?
Would you agree to respect the rights of anyone, no matter their race or national origin -- if they agreed to let you keep your guns?...

(read the rest at: http://www.lneilsmith.com/howmuchg.html
and while you're at it: http://www.lneilsmith.com/whyguns.html )

And also read "Ethics from the Barrel of a Gun" http://tuxedo.org/~esr/guns/gun-ethics.html